Boom - what a huge number of replies, thanks to everyone, great to be in a community that's so ready to help people with things like strategy with being all troll-like about things.

To answer a few questions:

Enemy forces - with the ship only builds they have generally been 3VSD OR 1VSD+2/3GSDs. Always imperial.

My General Strategies - Always to divide and conquer, concentrating firepower on a single ship wherever possible to get their firepower removed as soon as possible

Strategies Vs All Ship Lists - the problem is needing a balanced list that can fight against a squadron heavy list AS WELL as play against a ship only, dice rich list. Thats why thing like Sontir Fell are in my own list.

Why are you waiting for the enemy to come to you?

Mainly because if I don't, they get behind my lumbering ships and shoot me in the ass.

You should also start your VSD's off at speed 2 and try to refuse a flank. That way your ships are facing the firepower of only part of the enemy forces, not all of them. Then start pounding one enemy ship with your VSD's.

I need more info to see how this could ever happen - if I set up on one flank, the enemy always set up directly opposite me, then we just fly in a straight line towards each other!

Not sure why you have Chiraneau. He seems of marginal benefit at best.

Because without him - a single enemy squadron ties up the bombers for a turn.

The trick in any miniwargame I've found is being able to concentrate firepower while refusing them the ability to do so. So, misleading them in deployment, baiting and getting a ship out, with squadrons coming into play to help out.

Absolutely - but in concrete terms, how do I actually do that in Armada?

(More answers and questions in the next post....)

What I'd do is to keep with my capital ships slightly out of their long range and force them to come for me while taking pot shots with red dices at a single ship and swarm one ship with the fighters but spread them in different firing arcs so that he can't kill them all in one anti squadron barrages.

In terms of objectives I'm not too familiar yet but objectives forcing him to spread out would seem to work well imho so he can't support anti fighter barrages with multiple ships as effectively.

Problem is if you send your bombers out with no close ships the enemy will use the combined fire of 3-4 ships anti squadron fire to chip them down to 50% health in turn 1 - they have nothing else to shoot at after all right?

Deploy as far from your opponent as possible- the more turns before your ships engage each other the better. If they are playing with 3-4 imperial ships then it's all but guaranteed that are relying on a heap of black dice for damage. Stay out of close range as long as possible.

Pick one ship you're going to take down first. As was said above, this cannot be emphasized enough, especially against all-ship builds. Point all your strategies, ships, squadrons, commands, etc on taking down that one ship, while keeping in mind which one you're going to be going after next.

Send your bombers in turn one with a squadron command. Plant them right in the middle of your target ship's (and secondary targets') flight path(s). With rhymer, you should be able to reach them with your bombs even on turn 1. And for the next couple of turns after that you'll still be able to shoot without moving, so squadron commands aren't as necessary.

Unload bombs on target ship. With any luck, by the time your ships engage your target should be heavily damaged and should fall quickly to your ship fire. Now, you're left with 2-3 enemy ships against your 2 ships with full squadron support. Rinse and repeat.

This was my thinking behind deploying slowly and staying back, all it seemed to do for me was delay the inevitable however. And if I sent my bombers out on their own they would just be destroyed with combined anti squadron whilst the enemy ships were too far away to attack my own ships.

Hmmm you could always start your VSD's in a V shape in the center of the board. This let's you react to the flanks easily and if they go for the center you can swing in and double tap something.

I would also recommend using the Liason's. Tarkin will keep those tokens strong and you can adjust to the tactical situation better in the evolving environment that 4 ships bring.

I don't know about you but my experience has been almost exclusively ships lining up 1:1 across the table. No other deployments ever seem to happen!

Unless you have Rhymer and your opponent has no squadron support- that medium range bubble covers a lot of space. Just plant Rhymer's bomber swarm directly between your target ships and your own ships. When your opponent runs into your squadrons, especially if it's a VSD, just move all your overlapped squadrons to the front of his ship and let it drag your squadrons along with him. Even if that doesn't happen, your rhymer-bombers should still able to get shots off for a few rounds before needed support from a squadron command, by which point your ships should have moved back into command range.

If it's not a VSD, it leaves the next turn and you never get a target on it without the enemy being an idiot or using a squadron command surely?

You are going against 4 ships. With you going first, you eliminate a majority of where they can go to. If they go first they can move and scoot and get shots off that will take you down faster. You will be taking anywhere from 2 to 4 arcs in a row. That will kill a VSD. A Demolisher can take down a VSD in that situation. And not worry about being killed because it can then move (or engine techs)

Now going first does make you closer but that also means that you can choose to start at 1 and bank 2 tokens, one a navigation from Tarkin and the second a squadron (or engineering). This let's them rush you as you scope out when to come in and hit them. It also let's you set up your positions and gives you time to react to what they are doing. Speed 2 will kill the time you need to react. Remember, even if you get a single kill on turn 6, if they killed no ships you have won

I've lost both VSDs in turn 3-4! On deployment - all I ever see is 4 ships in a line looking straight at mine - there's never any variety in deployment.

This is the kind of list I would run.

VSD and Squads (294pts)

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (139pts)

Assault Concussion Missiles (7pts)

Expanded Hangar Bay (5pts)

X17 Turbolasers (6pts)

•Admiral Chiraneau (10pts)

•Grand Moff Tarkin (38pts)

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (91pts)

Assault Concussion Missiles (7pts)

Expanded Hangar Bay (5pts)

X17 Turbolasers (6pts)

Squadrons (64pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

•Darth Vader (21pts)

•Major Rhymer (16pts)

Precision Strike

Contested Outpost

Intel Sweep

Yes I realized I could take out the 2 ACMs and get another 2 bombers bit the point of the ACMs is to make them think twice about entering black dice range. If they do they will likely take a pounding and only be able to redirect a single point.

I have a game tomorrow night. I think I'll try this and see what happens.

A majority of my battles have been against less then 4 squadrons of fighters. The only thing i do it try to flank to one side, and concentrate my fire to the flanking side and leave one ship out of the battle.

I wish the VSDs had enough manoeuvrability to do that but...

Tetsugaku-san, you should think on all that's been posted. Then analyze your past games, and see what learning points you can distill. Then you shall start upon the path....to Victory!

Absolutely, I'm enjoying debating and exploring the different possibilities!

DrunkTarkin, you guys should talk about that in the next IFF broadcast. I think this is a great example.

Yes please do cover it - I started listening last week and debating the strategies to combat an all ship build (all sides vs all sides) would be really useful and I think a good topic to get more listener feedback / audio questions.

Cheers all - hugely, hugely appreciated!

They are staying in a line across?! Stop it. . . Your making me drool in such an easy victory.

Ok. So V formation keep them about an inch or so from the board edge. Keep the bottom right side of the left ship and the bottom left side of the right ship next to each other.

Your 2 Obstacles should be placed at range 3 1/5, and 5 in front of the opponents deployment one across from where you plan on dropping your Victory's. They should be about range 1 1/2 away from each other.

Now I expect your opponent to either divide his 4 ships so that 2 each will be directly in front of your ships OR he will likely focus on one ship with all 4 of his. He could take the bait and go between the obstacles but I think it is unlikely.

Your squadrons should be in the middle of your VSD's. Try it out. I suggest speed 1 to start and going first.

I tried the all ships build but its weak against fighters I haven't played against all ships builds but I have played close trick is getting the squadrons on the weak side of the enemy ship and if you use imperial sticking Major Rhymer in there helps with flexibility of range. If your enemy has no squadrons max they will do is 1-2 points of damage a turn. If your against imperial the victory is just so soft at the rear you will drop them very quick if you get plenty squadron orders in maybe even bank a token to order 4 squadrons.

My best game I started at distance grabbed the tokens ready on both Victorys then sent all 8 squadrons in to hammer there ship prior to the victory's shooting!

A few additional points:

Rhymer somewhat alleviates the need for bombers because he makes the normal imperial fighters attack at range 2, and makes them potentially useful without a squadron command. A very viable option that still plays against a non-ship spam list is Rhymer + a few advanced so he is protected from light squadron fire + a pile o' ties. It sounds harmless until someone eats roughly 10 blue dice at range 2 in a single round.

If you see the all-ship list start to dominate, go all bombers with Rhymer. It does brutally punish this so badly it may cause those guys to re-think taking it again.

The best counter lists are, however, rebels. B-wing spam when your opponent has no fighters will teach them the folly of having no fighters as an imperial player.

Right now the only list I think can go no fighters and win all matchups is CR90 spam.

Rhymer makes bombers attack like a Ships Blue Dice, that is range 3 I believe or closer. . .

CR90's would not survive long against the list I posted. Far too easy to figure out their movement and keep Rhymer in range to do some hurt while limiting the defense tokens. In the end it would likely be 1 to 2 dead CR90's and a severely damaged VSD with its brother faring just a tiny bit better

They are staying in a line across?! Stop it. . . Your making me drool in such an easy victory.

Ok. So V formation keep them about an inch or so from the board edge. Keep the bottom right side of the left ship and the bottom left side of the right ship next to each other.

Your 2 Obstacles should be placed at range 3 1/5, and 5 in front of the opponents deployment one across from where you plan on dropping your Victory's. They should be about range 1 1/2 away from each other.

Now I expect your opponent to either divide his 4 ships so that 2 each will be directly in front of your ships OR he will likely focus on one ship with all 4 of his. He could take the bait and go between the obstacles but I think it is unlikely.

Your squadrons should be in the middle of your VSD's. Try it out. I suggest speed 1 to start and going first.

So in a 2 VSD list, we're basically putting both ships next to each other, the same distance from my board edge? What distance apart are they to deploy? (if you have any old deployment pictures of your own they're always massively useful to see!).

The obstacle set up, presumably thats to avoid opponent coming in with a wave of ships next to each other?

Speed / squadrons - ok so start speed 1 and stay there? When would you send out the squadrons?

I tried the all ships build but its weak against fighters I haven't played against all ships builds but I have played close trick is getting the squadrons on the weak side of the enemy ship and if you use imperial sticking Major Rhymer in there helps with flexibility of range. If your enemy has no squadrons max they will do is 1-2 points of damage a turn. If your against imperial the victory is just so soft at the rear you will drop them very quick if you get plenty squadron orders in maybe even bank a token to order 4 squadrons.

My best game I started at distance grabbed the tokens ready on both Victorys then sent all 8 squadrons in to hammer there ship prior to the victory's shooting!

The problem I've had in getting bombers to the rear is that you can get them there, but then you can't activate them with a squadron command as they are so far away, any ideas?

Rhymer somewhat alleviates the need for bombers because he makes the normal imperial fighters attack at range 2, and makes them potentially useful without a squadron command. A very viable option that still plays against a non-ship spam list is Rhymer + a few advanced so he is protected from light squadron fire + a pile o' ties. It sounds harmless until someone eats roughly 10 blue dice at range 2 in a single round.

I just didn't twig that Rhymer affects all squadrons - I've been playing that he only affects Bombers - doh! That increases the use of lowly squadrons HUGELY, you're completely right about how great that many dice is. Note though, the wording of the card says close/medium range - thats the close medium range on the normally ship range ruler, not the one you is to measure distance 1 / squadron movement, because thats referred to as the distance tool.

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More useful tactics - thanks all. One thing supremely useful to me, being very new to the game, is an idea of why the tactics are recommended and what, specifically, you're trying to get out of the decision to deploy/move/attack in that pattern.

Cheers!

So I am saying to start with their base corners touching. Might be hard with the models getting in the way, if so then just work around it. I will post a picture when I get home of what I mean.

Tactically, just be responsive to what he does and time your jump to speed 2. If he goes after one of the ships have the other use navigation commands to swing over and catch their flank.

It will take a bit to get used to. Bomber wise, a first turn bomber run sounds interesting. . . Hmmm depends on how he deploys.

The obstacles are there to mess his deployment and movement up while facilitating your ability to swing around before those obstacles and pincer him.

So I am saying to start with their base corners touching. Might be hard with the models getting in the way, if so then just work around it. I will post a picture when I get home of what I mean.

Tactically, just be responsive to what he does and time your jump to speed 2. If he goes after one of the ships have the other use navigation commands to swing over and catch their flank.

It will take a bit to get used to. Bomber wise, a first turn bomber run sounds interesting. . . Hmmm depends on how he deploys.

Oh OK so in an actual V, pointing at, around, 30 degrees and 330 with the squadrons nestled in the triangular gap?

The importance of the bomber is that it has black dice and can use crits. The normal TIE Fighters only have a blue dice so at best they will get a 50% chance to strip a shield.

Be careful with medium range, rebels and GSD's have evade and can force a reroll (rebels may be able to negate the roll entirely)

I like to use Vader with Rhymer because his crits always work. The issue there is that I could get 2 more bombers for his cost

So I am saying to start with their base corners touching. Might be hard with the models getting in the way, if so then just work around it. I will post a picture when I get home of what I mean.

Tactically, just be responsive to what he does and time your jump to speed 2. If he goes after one of the ships have the other use navigation commands to swing over and catch their flank.

It will take a bit to get used to. Bomber wise, a first turn bomber run sounds interesting. . . Hmmm depends on how he deploys.

Oh OK so in an actual V, pointing at, around, 30 degrees and 330 with the squadrons nestled in the triangular gap?

Rhymer makes bombers attack like a Ships Blue Dice, that is range 3 I believe or closer. . .

CR90's would not survive long against the list I posted. Far too easy to figure out their movement and keep Rhymer in range to do some hurt while limiting the defense tokens. In the end it would likely be 1 to 2 dead CR90's and a severely damaged VSD with its brother faring just a tiny bit better

My testing so far indicates otherwise, given the incredible mutability of the CR90s movement path once it has banked even a single Nav token, much less six of them.

So far, the biggest issue carrier heavy lists face (I've played both with 6x CR90 and against it with my standard list that takes both an AFII and Yavaris) is that you kill 1-2 CR90s, but after that, the carriers are all dead and the rest of the squadrons are simply not fast enough to both catch up to a movement 3-4 CR90 and shoot at them without squadron commands.

This is in my games, but I will be interested to see how it plays out in practice. Interestingly, the one rebel tournament win I have seen was the London tourney where a player ran a combined CR90/Nebulon spam list with minimal squadron support (I think 2x A-wings?).

What list are you running. Likely no upgrades a mix of A's and B's and Dodonna right?

Most recently:

AFIIB w/Dodonna, Gallant Haven, Adar Tallon

Neb B Escort w/Yavaris

CR90A w/Leia

Keyan, Luke, Tycho, X-Wing x1, A-Wing x1

Full disclosure: I keep swapping the X-Wing for a B-Wing and back as I test this. I was previously running Wedge instead of Luke but so few people are playing large amounts of fighters (edit: in my group, YMMV and Wedge has a place) that it was overkill; this also ties in with the X/B switch as with Wedge, I prefer double-tapping with Keyan + B using Yavaris, but with Luke, I prefer double-tapping with Keyan + Luke, especially against something that still has shields as you can go with Luke first and crit fish with Dodonna.

A lot of the swapping comes from the fact that you can still play this list at high speed with a single B-wing by using the AF to activate Keyan first, flipping his slider with Adar, then re-activating him with the Neb B or CR90 so that he can move twice (speed 4 B-wing!); this ceases to be an option with 2 b-wings. Also, notice the AF has a 3 squadron value and the Neb has a 2 squadron value, so I can activate 5 ships between them... this is where the CR90 is helpful for a 6th activation if I want to squadron all of my ships and re-activate with Adar, but I also like the A-wing as the last ship as it's the least command heavy (I can just wedge it somewhere in the squadron phase to tie other stuff up, and it has counter).

Again, I continue to tinker, and have been also working Raymus back in at times on Yavaris by cheapening up the squadrons and dropping Leia, but I go back and forth on this. I also swap Raymus for GH at times as people aren't running many fighters lately and I just don't need it.

So there is flex, but the core is AFII + Yavaris + CR90 + Dodonna + Bombers + Some fighter cover that ideally is threatening enough that even without enemy fighters they can still bomb the pants off people (Luke is exceptional for this, Wedge still quite good).

This is the kind of list I would run.

VSD and Squads (294pts)

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (139pts)

Assault Concussion Missiles (7pts)

Expanded Hangar Bay (5pts)

X17 Turbolasers (6pts)

•Admiral Chiraneau (10pts)

•Grand Moff Tarkin (38pts)

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (91pts)

Assault Concussion Missiles (7pts)

Expanded Hangar Bay (5pts)

X17 Turbolasers (6pts)

Squadrons (64pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts)

•Darth Vader (21pts)

•Major Rhymer (16pts)

Precision Strike

Contested Outpost

Intel Sweep

Yes I realized I could take out the 2 ACMs and get another 2 bombers bit the point of the ACMs is to make them think twice about entering black dice range. If they do they will likely take a pounding and only be able to redirect a single point.

Ok so I played this list tonight, against rebels with lots of squadrons! Got the initiative, chose to go second and got Intel sweep.

Vader died in turn 2, some dirty rebel combo multi attack trick and the rest of the bombers did nothing but keep 5 squadrons busy. But they did.

We both got two objective tokens and I destroyed a neb b and wedge pushing me to victory by points alone. I did lose all my squadrons in the end.

Opponent also flew his frigate off the board in turn six so if I hadn't already won I did then!

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So to make it a more balanced force I think it needs some more anti squadron, but not much. Was a pleasure to actually win!

Hmmmm well depending how set up went I would have done kept my bombers back and used them to snipe.

Uh, you gets must have forgot bombers have heavy and things engaged with it can move away. That or he was running A-Wings or X-Wings

We had to play on a very very crowded table thanks to about 50 beard men in rock t-shirts turning up at the gaming club (again) - but I did get some set up pictures.

My carrier ship was on the right - thats the one with all of the decent squadron command stuff.

He went first and sent his CR90 forward and to his left, to pick up the first token. Seeing an opportunity, I sent the bombers in to medium range from him in turn 1, knocked down his from shields and did some damage.

In response he diverted all his fighters from their obvious intended route, to engage the bombers.

So far away from my carrier - I couldn't activate the bombers again as they got stuck in engaged. He also killed Vader in turn 1 (maybe 2 but it was the first dice roll of the squadron engagement)).

My two VSDs did two circles over 6 turns and passed each other very tightly at the top of the board. They finished in perfect condition, even shields thanks to lots of repair tokens and engineering commands in 4, 5 & 6.

So - I did win. I maybe could have done better if I hadn't set my bombers up like that. If I had put the carrier on the left, it would have made a massive difference as well.

Next time we're going to play 400 and see what happens

Remember to utilize navigation commands to get tighter turns. Don't be afraid to set up 2 navigation commands 8n a row so you can drop to 1 with a full turn and then jump up to 2 (then again if you have Tarkin you can just use the Nav commands to get tight turns)

I found when rebel ships are going slow they tend to lose. At speed three make a hard right or left turn and have them chase you.

Hmmmm your obstacles are placed on your side. . . I meant for them to be on the opposite side. It hinders their movement more and you want it further towards the center. This would make what ever ships that come in to the center something to dodge and something to five you cover from a die

Last night 258 vs 24. To me.

Boom. Almost same list, just changed the lasers

There you go.

If possible, let your opponent have initiative so that you go second. Of course, pick a selection of objectives that will favor you. I actually suggest steering clear of any of the objectives that spread out your enemy's ships and start the battle closer to you (Fleet Ambush, Hyperspace assault). This will help your opponent more than you by allowing him to get up close and personal with his black dice very quickly.

Deploy as far from your opponent as possible- the more turns before your ships engage each other the better. If they are playing with 3-4 imperial ships then it's all but guaranteed that are relying on a heap of black dice for damage. Stay out of close range as long as possible.

Pick one ship you're going to take down first. As was said above, this cannot be emphasized enough, especially against all-ship builds. Point all your strategies, ships, squadrons, commands, etc on taking down that one ship, while keeping in mind which one you're going to be going after next.

Don't underestimate gladiators. A couple gladiators with screed and missile can easily take down a VSD on their own.

I loved your post! Trimmed to second the stuff relevant to my latest game (which I lost). I played a Mon Mothma dual Orca list against a "Scary Crit Screed" VGG fleet with XX-9s on the Vic and ACMs on the two Glads. Fighter support was little to none - he had three TIEs, I had Tycho and 2 A-wings. My fighters are specifically there to harrass bomber lists with Tycho as my chief skirmisher.

I won initiative by the slimmest of margins and decided that I wanted choice of objective - and I chose hyperspace assault. If I remember correctly, his others were dangerous territory and... opening salvo? Seemed a bit like afterthoughts in the list, but I didn't want to entertain opening salvo at the time and dangerous territory could bite me with his nimble Gladiators being able to hop through obstacles without consequence.

First point: I decided to hand him second player, and I decided on hyperspace assault - and he obviously places the tokens in locations ripe for flanking. He did not seem to want to delay the additional deployment too many rounds and although it was brief, he did voluntarily split his fleet. Facing a list like VGG without fighters, I came to regret both of these actions.

Second point: Outside of the hyperspace assault jump points, we were quite spread apart. My assault frigates were arranged to immediately turn away from his ships and try to circle the board around him. Outside of the jumped in Gladiator (more on that in a moment), there are two rounds that were almost entirely movement and posturing. I was trying to play the long game and go for a late kill and his Victory is just far enough away that he looked to be thinking the same. But because I didn't make my first pass quickly enough, he was rapidly closing down the board with both the hyperspace assault Gladiator from my rear and the existing Victory turning into my wide loop to cut it off. Without a navigate command queued to try to counter this slash, Imperial fireworks on turn three and four appear inevitable.

Third point: We both had a target in mind. Mine was to be whichever Gladiator entered range first, his was Paragon with Raymus. His definitive choice of target ended up trumping my percieved flexibility as I ended up with sub-optimal shots on both Gladiators for a turn or two. Having mainly worked on crippling opposing fighter support and isolating and preying on a Victory at range, I incorrectly assumed that I could adapt to the equally maneuverable Gladiators and pounce on whichever ship he elected to surge forward with first.

Final Point: After some love taps from the Vic's red dice, a Gladiator (Demolisher the deadly) brought its broadside black dice on Paragon's weakened side with a concentrate fire command and took it off the board just like that. Letting a Gladiator get close, especially if they are in a position with the title to sneak in an attack after movement, is a recipe for disaster. There was nothing that I could have done to save Paragon without playing the whole game over from round one.

He destroyed Paragon and nothing else, I destroyed the non-Demolisher Glad in the final round and all of his TIE squadrons - so he ended up with the victory by a narrow 20ish points. I unfortunately don't remember the exact margin of victory at the moment.

If I were to alter my approach in this match, I would absolutely make a few changes. I think I would have still wanted choice of objective, but I would have taken a different one - probably opening salvo - and then decide upon and commit to a single, more valuable target. I cannot outrun Gladiators, but I can stick to my own strengths paired with a better objective bonus and pick on the Victory as a clear target. Additionally, I was trying to cast a wide net for an entirely different type of list with a defensive, meandering loop towards the end of the board. With a one ship advantage for the Empire, he used board control to shut down my manuever options leaving me with three bad decisions: run off the board, run into all of the black dice, or run into his ships and all of the black dice. While I kept my speed high, with two lists of primarily high-upgrade ships, the aggressor won the day and I could have challenged his dominance of the space with some navigate commands early.

I also found his list very intriguing, and I am going to play with some variations of it coming up. He used a Vic-I and a pair of Glad-IIs, and his rationale was similar to mine in wanting to have the ability to support his TIEs with stonger anti-squadron armament should he face a squadron heavy opponent. Although the Gladiators proved to be the deadly portion of the list, I noticed that beyond carrying Screed, the Victory did very little beyond board denial. Maybe that is the Victory's only purpose in a list like this, but I would want to experiment with perhaps downgrading the Gladiators and trying a Vic-II... maybe with leading shots and Dominator? But I haven't even played with the points to see if that kind of change is even plausible. His TIEs held up my A-wings for a short time, but I don't know how much of a speed bump they would have been against a dedicated fighter list. Maybe the Glad-II's extra blue die becomes necessary?

Oh, and intel officer is good. We both had one. It's just so good and so mean, I want that card whenever I can fit it in.